Our story begins during the last interglacial, also known as the Eemian, 130,000 years ago. This period was something akin to Europe's garden of eden, a place unspoilt by modern man, where elephants and rhinos roamed alongside deer and elk. Romanticism aside, it was indeed a magnificent time, also for the big cats. During the Eemian, Europe was home to 4 different big cats, the leopard, the lynx, the lion, and the scimitar cat(Homotherium). Of these, the latter is now completely extinct, but the others persist in Africa and Asia. The Leopard was absent from the northernmost regions, but the other 3 were present all throughout Europe. When the ice age finally arrived, it did not have a large effect on the cats. The leopard was restricted to the southern refuges, Italy and Spain, like most of the other temperate species at the time, but remained fairly common. The lynx too was forced back, not directly because of climate, but rather due to their ecological niche. Lynx are forest animals, and do not do well on tundra. The lions and scimitar cats however remained in northern Europe, right up to the glaciers. There they shared their habitat with a variety of other large predators, including wolves, bears, hyenas, and dholes.
This was the case for the majority of the ice age, up until 50,000 years ago, when modern humans first arrived on the continent. Shortly after, the scimitar cats promptly disappeared throughout most of their range. Typically thought to have died out around 40,000 years ago, newer findings have shown that scimitar cats at least occasionally entered Europe as late as 28,000 years ago. Leopards were also hit hard, though their decline was slightly more prolonged, they had gone extinct throughout much of the continent by 10,000 BC, but persisted for significantly longer in the eastern and southernmost parts, although the eastern populations in particular may represent later immigrants instead of relics of the original European leopard population.
A painting of a leopard in the Chauvet cave, france
Thus we turn to the two most resilient big cats in Europe, the lynx and the lion. Of the lynx, their story is relatively uncomplicated, as they have persisted until the present. Shy forest animals, they had an inherent advantage towards surviving in a human dominated environment. The rest of this article will be focusing primarily on the lions, for it is their story that is truly fascinating. As stated above, lions have been present in Europe for as long as all of the continent's other fauna, but what makes them so interesting is how long their lasted. The European subspecies, P. l. spelaea, survived as late as 10,000 years ago, 4000 years after the end of the ice age. Adaptable and widely distributed animals, their ability to persist may have been down to raw strength and tenaciousness. But resilient as they were, 10,000 years ago lions do indeed seem to have vanished from Europe. Normally this would be the end of the story, just yet another species wiped out by humans, but in this case something unusual happened. Several thousand years after having seemingly died out, lions suddenly reappear in Europe. Remains from Hungary have been dated to around 7000 years ago, and are some of the earliest of what I will refer to as the "late" European lions. After their reappearance, lions once again became fairly widely distributed, from southern Central Europe through the Balkans including all of Greece and possibly northern Italy. They did not manage to make it back into the northern parts of the continent however, for reasons we may never know.
Cave paintings of P. l. spelaea, also from the Chauvet cave
For the next several thousand years, lions remain a constant part of the European bestiary, and would have been intimately familiar to the people who lived alongside them. Despite this however, we in the 21st century still do not know particularly much about them. The most pressing question concerning the "late" lions is whether they actually represented a late surviving population of P. l. spelaea, or belonged to another subspecies that immigrated independently. Currently the bulk of the evidence points towards the latter. To begin with, if these really were late surviving "cave lions", where did they come from? spelaea was not distributed very far outside of Europe, making it unlikely that some yet undiscovered refuge existed in Asia. On top of this, what limited range they did have outside of Europe was quite far north, in what is now western Russia, but the "late" lions clearly came from further south, probably the middle east, not some central Asian region. Yet another mark against the "spelaea hypothesis" is that ice age cave paintings exclusively portray maneless animals, while Greek art clearly shows animals with manes. Considering how many of these cave paintings we have, it is improbable that they were all meant to be females.
A sculpture of a lion from Greece, clearly showing a mane
In conclusion, I find it most probable that the "late" European lions were members of Asiatic lion subspecies, which was distributed into Turkey nearly until the 20th century. Turkey is also the place the "late" lions most likely came from, further supporting this idea. Whatever their origins, one thing we can state for certain regarding the "late" lions is that, at least for a time, they were quite successful. Exactly why they were capable of spreading into Europe at a time when hunting pressure was at an all time high is not known, but it may be that the lions from Turkey were especially well adapted to humans, as evidenced by the fact that they persisted there until just 100 years ago. But as can probably be deduced from their absence today, they did eventually go extinct in Europe. Again. Lions were still present in Greece during the 1st century BC, but were reported as rare, and had already died out everywhere else. The last ones probably died sometime shortly after the supposed birth of Christ. it should also be noted that the lions used in the Colosseum by the Romans were not in fact from Greece, but instead imported from Tunisia, and belonged to the now also extinct Barbary lion subspecies.
As far as we know, this was the end of big cats(other than lynx) in Europe, unless one counts the Caucasus, where small numbers of leopards persist even today. There is no evidence for any populations of other species after this point. And where does this leave us? Today big cats are in trouble world-wide, even in their African stronghold. Poaching is an increasingly prominent issue, and habitat loss is accelerating. While it would undeniably be difficult, and while many tribulations would lie ahead, perhaps it is time for Europe to re-embrace its lost heritage, if only to save them from extinction globally.
I have thought Europe could do with re introducing lions & leopards.Why is Africa portrayed as a natural habitat for large felines but not Europe? Asia has lots of cats of different sizes also.
ReplyDeleteI would like to cite your research discussed in this blog entry on big cats in Europe. But to do so, I need more information. Could you contact me at roz-frank@uiowa.edu?
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Roslyn
the Iberian lynx is a different species to the Eurasian lynx.
ReplyDeleteprobably the 2 species separated during the last ice age
Thank you for your very interesting text. I send you a reflexion of mine (in french language and 2 parts) on late european lions but also tigers in oriental and central europe. I work on presence of big feline in Europe in the past since 25 years. Here is my blog blog "Retour du tigre en Europe"
ReplyDeletehttps://europe-tigre.over-blog.com/
A la fin du dernier âge glaciaire, au sein du monde des grands félins. les lions sont donc nettement dominants dans tout l’espace eurasien subtropical et tempéré. Les tigres survivent discrètement dans les contreforts montagneux, les refuges forestiers remontant à la période tertiaire et les zones alluviales : forêts fruitières et roselières tugaï d’Eurasie centrale, bandeau forestier hyrcanien (au sud de la Caspienne) et roselières deltaïques d’Eurasie occidentale. Très vite, les lions se retrouvent en compétition avec une puissance montante, l’Homme.
A partir de l’âge de fer (voire plus tôt), la compétition homme/lion prend une dimension considérable, les premiers provoquant le déclin sensible des seconds. Peu à peu, les tigres d’Eurasie centrale et occidentale tendent à s’épanouir dans des espaces de plus en plus vastes désormais vides de présence léonine. Or, si la compétition est d’abord vive entre hommes et lions, elle est bien moindre avec les tigres, dont les choix de vie les rendent beaucoup plus discrets que les lions au regard de l’Homme, qui a inscrit les premiers au premier plan de sa culture et de ses représentations… Dès le début du Haut Moyen-Âge, le tigre tend à remplacer le lion dans le delta du Danube, les vallées de la Volga et du Dniepr, la puszta hongroise… Il prospère dans les plaines ouvertes du Caucase oriental pendant des siècles après la disparition du lion… La domination mongole sur une partie importante de l’Eurasie à partir du XIIIème siècle provoque des bouleversements géopolitiques et démographiques de long terme dont le tigre bénéficie au moins jusqu’au XVIIIème siècle.
Late european lions and tigers, following
ReplyDeleteRome : un tigre miroir. C’est lors de la campagne de Pompée contre Mithridate que les romains découvrent l’existence du tigre dans le bandeau forestier hyrcanien qui longe les côtes méridionales de la mer Caspienne. Varron, qui participe à l’expédition, décrira Leo uarius (le « lion bigarré »). L’animal fascine les romains. Dans les jeux du cirque, ils le massacreront dans des proportions extraordinairement moindres que le lion, éradiqué d’Europe dans les premiers siècles de notre ère du fait de sa surutilisation dans les amphithéâtres, et lui offriront, contrairement à ce dernier, « une fulgurante carrière littéraire » . L’Hyrcanie et son animal emblème deviennent ainsi des référents poétiques de la sauvagerie et de la cruauté. Virgile, Tacite, Sénèque, Lucain, Martial en font un miroir des hommes, constatant, non sans lucidité, que ceux-ci sont encore pires. Cette figure de style sera d’ailleurs largement reprise à l’époque moderne dans de nombreux romans et pièces de théâtre (Shakespeare, par exemple, y fera fréquemment allusion).
Espace Russe. Un récit salvateur.
Depuis l’âge du bronze si ce n’est avant, les nomades scythes ont défini l’espace géographique allant de la forêt hyrcanienne au Dniepr comme expression concrète de leur mythe fondateur (comme l’ont amplement démontré les travaux de François Cornillot dans la Revue « Slovo » de 1994 à 2000 , utilisant la cordillère caucasienne du détroit de Kertch à la mer Caspienne comme clef de voûte et matrice de celui-ci. Leur influence en Europe est particulièrement importante à l’âge du fer . Ce cadre est aussi, très exactement, celui du tigre européen, qu’ils connaissent parfaitement. Les représentations des Slaves orientaux sont directement et massivement inspirées de la pensée scythique .
TO FOLLOW AND CONCLUDE.
Late lions and tigers in Europe, last part.
ReplyDeleteGladiateur contre bête fauve. Lors d'une de ses chasses dans une zone marécageuse de la région de Tchernigov (qu'il dirige entre 1078 et 1094), celui qui deviendra Grand Prince de Kiev à partir de 1113, Vladimir Monomaque (« Gladiatorien »), est attaqué par une "bête féroce" ("lyuty zver") qui bondit sur son cheval, provoquant la chute de la monture et de son cavalier.
La victime ne lui donne pas d'autre dénominatif, alors que les autres prédateurs (ours, loups...) sont parfaitement identifiés par leurs noms d'espèce respectifs. Vladimir Heptner conclura en 1969 que l'agresseur était un tigre. Cette façon qu'a cet animal de bondir sur les cavaliers se vérifiera et sera dûment répertoriée siècle après siècle, chez les mongols, les ottomans, les kirghizes, les cosaques... et encore une fois dans une ravine au Tadjikistan en décembre 1928...
Le Prince et le félin intervenaient dans la même niche écologique. L'un comme l'autre chassaient préférentiellement des chevaux sauvages, des aurochs et des sangliers géants. Le prince et son équipe pouvait tuer une centaine d'aurochs par an. Or, ce sont les aurochs, et notamment les grands mâles, qui régulent la population de tigres, et non l'inverse. Les buffles agissent de même en Afrique, en piétinant les portées des lionnes dans les marais, et, si possible, en tuant les lionnes elles-mêmes. Un souverain du Moyen-Orient en importa des milliers en provenance d'Inde au Moyen-Âge dans le but de protéger les troupeaux de ses sujets... Affaiblir ainsi la structure sociale des aurochs en visant prioritairement les grands taureaux impliquait donc une sensible baisse de pression sur les tigres et facilitait leur croissance démographique. A contrario, capturer des troupeaux entiers de chevaux sauvages pour les domestiquer enlevait le pain de la bouche à des tigres plus nombreux, aux besoins alimentaires par conséquent plus importants. Enfin, l'invasion brutale et ostentatoire du territoire le plus intime du félin parachevait l'inévitabilité de la riposte.
MANY BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES CAN BE TRANSMITTED ON ONE ELEMENT OR THE OTHER IF YOU WANT.
WITH MY BEST REGARDS.
ALAIN SENNEPIN